December Prayer Requests and Update

Hello everyone—it's been too long since I've reached out with prayer requests for our ministry and update information; I do apologize for that delay. Your prayers are very important to us.

Currently, we could use prayer for an avenue to open up for us to find a new building for the Unite Free Store, Aikido of Northwest Kansas, and The Gamers Guild in either the immediate future or in the long term—or for some other change (decreasing cost, an alternate location for the free store, some other answer etc.). The Free Store keeps getting more donations, and along with that it gets more use; we are already capped on space, so we need some kind of change there. We also have been dealing with escalating rent, which has gotten to the point that it's soon to be an almost identical cost to simply buying a building and paying everything that goes with building ownership and maintenance. We have a few potentials in front of us, but no clear path yet.

Beyond that, we could use prayers that we stay sensitive for opportunities to connect with individuals in the right way at the right time. Recent months have been very active when it comes to deep, quality relationships and spiritual conversations with a few people, even though we’ve also had some larger ministry projects. As an example, one of my Aikido students who was a non-believer joined one of our small group bible studies with Unite several months ago—shortly thereafter his girlfriend was in a traumatic accident, and we were able to be with him and pray with him through it. She is now mostly recuperated (thank God), and he is continuing to grow and explore his faith. We've also gotten to better know a local homeless fellow who frequently hangs out at The Gamers Guild and the Free Store in the evenings. He takes some of the donations we get in and gives them out to other homeless individuals or others in need in the area, and he also shares time and stories with those playing in The Gamers Guild/hanging out.

More recently, I've gotten to build a deep friendship with an individual who had formerly attended the youth group I help with; we have had some excellent spiritual conversations, and it has very much been a mutual blessing/encouragement; I personally find it deeply satisfying to grow together in faith with others as we share experiences that we’ve had with God in our lives. In line with deep friendships, I’ve also been praying and talking with a fellow who had taught at our Aikido school and who now lives on the East Coast. He’s gone through some very large challenges, but thanks to prayer and the Holy Spirit he and his family are now on a much better path. Please keep them in your prayers—that things continue to go well with them.

There are more stories besides those—just last week, I began making religious visits to a fellow in jail here based on his request and a connection through another minister. So far the conversations on spiritual subjects have been very good, and I’m looking forward to more of those. I’ve also been blessed to develop some regional friendships in Aikido that have also placed me in contact with some people going through faith challenges who have finally opened up and begun talking about them. Unfortunately, in all of these very excellent Kingdom opportunities, I’m not able to share many details with you—our prayer partners in ministry—due to the confidentiality involved with those I’m meeting/chatting with. It is often like that in our ministry—as such, I’d ask you to pray for any of those individuals who stick out to you when you read the brief highlight. Every one of them is an awesome person, and each situation could use prayer.

As far as larger ministry projects go—we have been distributing laptops and desktop computers to those in need from the large supply that were donated by HaysMed. They were donated without hard drives, which we have now purchased; over time, volunteers and a few of us who are regularly involved in some of the ministry projects put them back together, install and update the software, and troubleshoot any problems before we give them out. We’ve also continued distributing federal food every two months both regionally (we are the distribution hub for several counties) and locally (we are one of the local distribution sites in Hays, too).

Most of the other continuing projects are still going well—our small group Bible studies are slightly intermittent as finals approach for a lot of college students, but they are still very strong when the meet, and those involved seem sincerely to enjoy them. The Friday Night Game Night continues at The Gamers Guild (pretty much every night up there is a game night for someone—it is quite successful at being a community hangout place that people feel comfortable coming in to play games and meet others). Thankfully we DO have some volunteers there who will keep it running late after I need to head home and go to bed. Just this very weekend, I came back to The Gamers Guild at 6:30am to grab a jump drive on my way out of town, and one of the volunteers whom I’d left at 2:00am was still there playing board games with some of the guys. I remember having that type of energy in college, but now it is a little much for me to get that little of sleep very often. ;)

As we wrap up this 2017 year later this month and prepare for a new year, I want to sincerely thank you for your prayers and/or financial support. Many of the things that happen through my ministry work are hard to discuss or can’t even be mentioned due to confidentiality of those involved, but I will say that The Holy Spirit has been obviously visible over this last year and that The Kingdom of God continues to advance here and elsewhere. Thank you for taking the time to pray with us and think about us (and read these updates). It is very important that we all move forward in our own areas of Kingdom work together in the Spirit and in love, as scripture tells us to do. As such, if you have any prayer requests yourself, please send them back to me, and I’ll take the time to pray with you as we wrap up the year. Keep serving with Christ this year and next year!